1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a tailgate or rear door for a motor vehicle with a carrying structure of a fibre-reinforced thermoplastic plastic with hinges, a lock and a rear window.
2. Description of Related Art
For some time, one has attempted to replace the existing metal tailgates with lighter plastic designs for the purpose of weight reduction. For example, a double-walled plastic component is known from EP 0 266 514, which however is still expensive in manufacture and above all has inadequate mechanical characteristics. In order to achieve improved mechanical characteristics, various tailgates with a GMT-structure and subsequently also with GMTex, i.e. GMT with fabric reinforcement, have been applied. Since these also still have insufficient mechanical characteristics, further carrying structures of fibre-reinforced plastics with metallic frame designs have been combined into a main carrying structure with sufficient mechanical characteristics. Such a motor vehicle rear door with a metal frame is known e.g. from EP 1 621 384. These known tailgates, however, also have an increased weight, on account of metal reinforcement, and they entail a more costly manufacture. The known tailgates thus on the one hand require a costly manufacture, and without metal reinforcements have inadequate strength and stiffness characteristics or with the metal reinforcement are more costly to manufacture and also heavier.